


Function

by hazeltea (madlovescience)



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:55:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 18,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madlovescience/pseuds/hazeltea





	1. Chapter 1

When Ace, the new, other Ace, had solemnly placed the scorched, shattered remains of the light bee in his palm and clasped his hands around the other’s, squeezing comfortingly, Lister felt a blow that he was sure had knocked him out of his body.He couldn’t feel his limbs shaking. For a moment, he had gone deaf. He didn’t even hear himself scream.

It had been a full three weeks. Kryten’s circuits were overheating with worry. Kochanski listened to Kryten fret constantly; tight lipped, mind racing, her non-action infuriating the mechanoid. The Cat was unnerved, giving Lister a wide berth while shooting him the occasional concerned, uncomfortable glance. Humans were difficult to deal with when they went through these emotional tirades, and what was worse, their grooming habits usually declined even further until they regained their composure. He wanted no part of it.

For awhile, Lister didn’t notice or care about the others’ actions, his world narrowed to his own self pity and grieving. He huddled in his bunk, barely grunting when Kryten would bring him food that he would often forget to eat, slipping in and out of uncomfortable, haunted slumber. Day and night, he clutched the scraps of metal and silicon close, eyes dimly focused on the faint residue of blue light that still radiated from the center, just dim enough for him to wonder if he was imagining it, if he was seeing it there because he wanted to see it, some evidence that this shattered hardware had once pulsed with the energy of life. As the days passed, desperation turned to determination. He began to research.

“That’s radiation, you know.” Kochanski said, craning her neck to nod towards the midsection table where Lister sat with his piles of tools and reference data that he only slightly understood. In the center of it all laid the open light bee and splintered hard light drive for examination. “You’ll wind up with some form of cancer if you expose yourself like that.” She tucked her damp hair behind one ear.

“I deserve what I get.” Lister snarled, cupping his hand over the bee as though he expected Kochanski to snatch it away. “It’s my fault he’s like this, Kris.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, if it was fatigue or something more, she couldn’t tell. Kochanski took her cup of recyc herbal tea and sat down beside him. “I sent him off to die. I knew. Deep down, I knew. I just…” he trailed off. I wanted you to let go of that stupid need to appease your pathetic smegging family. I wanted you to see some worth in yourself. I wanted you to love you as much as I did, like I never had the nerve to say in words, so I had to make do with my actions.

Yet even now, words failed him, and he couldn’t articulate what was racing through his mind. Instead, he turned weary eyes to the woman was so like the Kris he used to love, but not quite. His love of the long dead woman had created in him a concrete trust in her doppelganger from the start. Her abilities tripled in his mind. Most would consider her a capable officer, but Lister considered her capable of a miracle, and it was time to test that theory.

“I need your help.” he said, quietly. “I don’t understand a lot of this technology. I’m all right with robotics, but holograms are something else, especially this hard light drive. I've loctated a derelict that’s pretty advanced, maybe I’ll find more information there, but I need your help to understand it all. If I don’t find it there, I’ll keep searching derelicts. The technology’s out there.”

Kochanski took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. She had guessed that he’d try something like this, but had prayed that he wouldn’t be so foolish. It was heartbreaking to watch. “Dave…” she began, weakly. “Do you really think he’s still…” alive would be a touchy word, she realized. Best not to use it. “Functional?” she tried.

“He’s in there.” Lister said, shaking his head, fiercely. “That’s why it still radiates. I can tell, I can just tell he’s there… somewhere beneath the surface, like… a hologramatic coma. I’m sure of it.”

“The hard light drive is damaged… it contains his data.” She said, hating herself for the words she was saying, but knowing that they had to be said.

“I have his disk. He backed up his memories. I have it all.” He insisted. “Look, I’ve been through enough with Kryten to know how to deal with corrupted files. I know you’re going to tell me to give up on him, but I can’t, not now, not ever. That’s why I need you.” He clutched her hand so tightly that it began to hurt. Finally, he let go, and picked up the bee. “It’s such a delicate thing.” he said, softly, turning the light bee over gently in his palm. “Are you in pain, darlin’? I’ll never know. Every wire’s like an artery to me. I’m afraid to make a cut. Not till I understand how it all works.”

There was a terrible silence for a moment as Kochanski gazed at the man who was not the man that she loved. In the past, the differences often enraged her. She would seethe to herself, how dare this cheeky bastard taunt her with her lover’s image while being everything that he was not, knowing full well that she would never see him again? The injustice would wash over her in waves, dissipating, in time, to a sullen apathy. Somewhere along the line, apathy, and perhaps a bit of exasperation had begun to win out over anger more and more, and while she couldn’t see how two of the same person could be so utterly different, she’d accepted it. She had come to form a friendship with this Dave.

In this fleeting moment, she suddenly understood the thread that bound the two together. He was every bit as devoted and serious as her Dave when it came to the people that mattered to him, and the similarity of their expressions made her want to cry.

“Will you help me, then?” he asked. He fidgeted with his locks as she considered her answer, his sad brown eyes still gazing intently at the light bee.

Kochanski had barely known the awkward second technician Rimmer in her dimension, but this Dave needed him to function. In this dimension, they had much in common. They both knew what it was like to be the last of their kind. They both knew the pain of loving, and losing holograms. She realized that she wouldn’t wish those things on anyone, and wondered why it had taken her so long to realize that she was not alone in her suffering.

“I’ll help.” She promised, after a long pause. “We won’t give up, okay? Somehow, we’ll figure it out. We’ve been in worse scrapes than this, right?” She prayed that she would be able to keep her word.

With that reassurance, a smile spread across his face that lit up the room like the summer sun, and suddenly, she believed that they could do anything.


	2. Chapter 2

Static. A dull white noise, a jolt through his scattered senses, disturbance in the dark field that was his vision, if he were a being with eyes to see. He was a being of some sort, he knew that. From the depths of blackness, he rose, although never to the surface, like being caught up in an ocean current far below where the sunlight could penetrate. The static would increase in intensity, and he would feel as though he was being lifted up, just to have it abruptly stop, and the current would then lash back against him violently, sending him spiraling downwards with a painful crack. Sometimes the blessed blackness would return, but just as swiftly, he would be prodded into the chaos again.

This time was different than the last. He was more aware of the static, more aware of himself. He hurt everywhere and nowhere, because he could not figure out where he began and the black static ended. Something that was almost a physical presence needled through the static, and he twitched, curling in on himself as much as he was able. Why was this happening? It was so peaceful just a moment ago. Whatever it was was pulling him upwards again, and instinctively, he swam against it. The presence forced him forward, against a solid wall, and he both heard and felt a loud click, echoing inside of him and out. The static had ceased, and he was overwhelmed with images, feelings, knowledge. There was no time to access them now. He saw glimpses of them as they were neatly filed away somewhere… somewhere inside of him.

He flexed his fingers in worry. Fingers! He had fingers. He had a form. And a name, yes, his name was Arnold, and … and there were a lot of things that he suspected that he didn’t want to remember just quite yet, for some reason.

The stream of incoming data was too much to take in actively, so he braced himself, and let it passively stream in. This made him feel worse than at the height of the static assault. He groaned, and stretched out to focus on something, anything, other than this new information. He was seeing glimpses of things that terrified him, things that made him ill, things that made him feel oddly ashamed, and he wanted it to stop, he wanted the darkness, even the awful static, anything but what was currently being fed into his memory.

He had to get away. He struggled away from the influx, and towards the only thing he could sense- some other data, broken and incomplete, that seemed familiar yet alien at the same time. If he could use it as an anchor, he wouldn’t be absorbed by all of those dreadful, hideous things that the presence poking through the static was forcing on him. These memories weren’t so bad… they weren’t complete. They were unreal, snapshots in time. He liked that. It felt safe, like it wasn’t real at all, but a sort of game. Until he touched the core…

 _The simulant looked down on him and smiled a sickly grin. It aimed its particle accelerator cannon downwards. He struggled, but his light bee was caught beneath the tangle of steel rafters…  
_

“No!” he screamed, struggling to disentangle himself from the splintered memory. This too? No, please, not this one, too. Was there no peace for him? He sank to his knees, heaving, shaking, head pounding. “Lister…” he groaned. He’d cried out that familiar name as the nuclear fire erupted from the barrel of the simulant’s gun. He sobbed it now, not remembering its meaning, but knowing that it had the power to make all of the pieces fit together. He focused on the word, and not the jumble of memories, and at long last, the magnificent, merciful blackness claimed him once again.

 

“No!” Lister hissed, throwing down the minuscule screwdriver in despair. “Not again, not this time!” He resisted the urge to bring his fist down on the keyboard that he had wired to the hard light drive. He drew in a sharp breath, and covered his face with his hands as he exhaled. “I’m too smegging close… don’t do this to me, you bastard.” he whispered.

There was no answer.


	3. Chapter 3

“Mister Lister?”

Lister held his breath as he leaned over the hard light drive. Two small lamps illuminated the task at hand. In his left hand he held a circuit board no larger than a centimeter square between tweezers lifted from Kochanski’s makeup kit, in his right, a soldering iron with a miniature tip. He counted the notches inside of the bee and set the chip into its proper position with a tiny dot of solder, wishing that his fingers weren’t so stubby and shaky, if just for five minutes, although he’d never considered them to possess those qualities before.

“Mister Lister, Sir? Are you paying attention? You have to eat your dinner. It’s gone cold twice already.”

“In a minute, Krytes.” Lister exhaled, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t been taking in oxygen in quite some time. “I just have to finish up this bit first.” The mechanoid gave him a stern look, and set the plate of curried this-and-that beside him. Despite the questionable contents of the dish, which looked suspiciously like plant life of some sort, Lister’s stomach growled at the scent of the familiar spices. He set down the iron. “I guess it has been awhile since I sat down, hasn’t it.” He admitted, sheepishly, picking up his fork.

“Well, yes, it has been just short of two months since I’ve been able to set the table and have everyone sit down for a meal together, Sir.” Kryten replied brusquely, as he arranged the remaining plates along the far edge of the table. “Not that I mind, not at all.” He added quickly, spooning an extra helping onto Lister’s plate.

“Well, I’m tired of looking at all of this junk.” Cat declared, as he reached for a dinner roll and examined the assembled platters for the choicest morsels. “When are you going to just give up? I thought you hated the guy. How could you forget something like that? This is never going to work, but if it did, you’d be sorry ten minutes later, mark my words.”

“You know that I never hated him, not really.” Lister objected. “I mean… well, maybe once, before the accident, but he’s not that same person anymore. Hadn’t you noticed?”

Cat shrugged. “Once a smeghead, always a smeghead.” He replied, taking a bite of his roll. “You can’t go on blaming yourself for this, bud. All that guilt is messing with your mind, making you forget all the bad times. Just let it go.”

“It’s not all about guilt, okay.” Lister began, frustrated and awkward. “It’s more than that, I just need him back, can you just try to understand that?”

Cat smirked. “I can try, but it’ll take a lot of effort.”

“I hate to say it, Sir, but perhaps he does have a point. While I admire your dedication, I fear that Miss Kochanski might be giving you false hope with her diagnosis. What you are attempting has never been successfully carried out and documented.” Kryten replied.

“I have to try anyway, Kryten. It’s not about what chance I’ve got, it’s that I’ve got a chance at all, see? It’s about loyalty and love. I can’t come this far and just give up.” Lister slid his plate aside, and contemplated the curry stained blueprint under it once again.

Cat grimaced and pushed away his chair. “Ugh, don’t talk like that. Love? Man, you’ve gone totally space crazy.”

Torn between his inclination to agree with Cat’s opinion and his desire to defend Lister, Kryten drummed his fingertips on the tabletop thoughtfully. “Although my mastery of complex human emotions is somewhat limited, I believe Shakespeare himself wrote that “love is blind.” He offered. “So perhaps Mister Lister is suffering from a temporary bout of delusion. I can assure you, Sir, that he is not space crazy in the usual sense of the word.”

Cat shook his head in disbelief. “Blind? You’d need to be deaf, too, at least. What about “out of sight, out of mind?” That would be better advice.”

Lister set down the plans and sighed. “When people say that love is blind, it’s only half of the story. You might find that little things that they do that are annoying as smeg start to become endearing, because seeing or hearing whatever it is reminds you of that person, reminds you that they are there with you, that out of anywhere in the universe that they could be, you’ve got them right here, and how lucky is that when you think about it? Or, maybe you love someone so much that the small things don’t matter and you overlook them. You’re not blind, you just see that whatever the faults are, they aren’t important. Not in comparison to the rest of what else they have to offer. The truth, Kryten, is that love doesn’t make you blind. It makes you see. It makes you see the good bits hidden beneath the bad. It lets you see past the petty business to see someone for who they really are. Do you understand now?” Lister gazed imploringly at him.

“I… think so, Sir.” Kryten murmered. “Excuse me, I have to fix a plate for Miss Kochanski.” Lister watched him retreat to the kitchen, and then turned to the Cat’s now empty chair. So much for that talk, then.

He brought the laptop out of sleep mode and tested its connections with the hard light drive, placing his finger on the bee as though checking for a pulse. He smiled as he felt a reassuring current hum under his finger. “Hey there.” He began. “We’re gonna get through this. Trust me.” He said, softly. “You’re going to be all right. Just hang on, okay?” He’d noticed himself talking to the light bee more and more often these days. Part of him was beginning to believe that somewhere, somehow, it could hear and understand him, and perhaps relay his message to the man inside.


	4. Chapter 4

There were many corridors in the black space that Rimmer inhabited. There was no light to see by except an ambient glow that came from the doors that held back the various loops of memory and caches of knowledge. He avoided these warily, making his way through the narrow hallway. He felt the smooth surface of the walls with his hands, the tips of his fingers slipping just beneath the surface of the cool metal to detect where the threads of data would thicken, and lead to the next door. Sometimes he would encounter a place where the passage broke away, and recessed several feet. He would rest in these alcoves and listen to the ghosts of his thoughts pass by, hidden in the shadows.

He’d been conscious, apart from the blackness, for longer than he could remember previously. He could recall a great number of things. His name, a house on Io with long, slender hallways and winding stairs that would creak on the third and fifteenth steps, containing a family that had produced a son with a temperament so unlike theirs that he could never hope to be understood. Rimmer knew that these people would not approve of the other disjointed memories: his failure to succeed as an officer, his lack of skill that had caused the accident, his inability to be respected by even a service droid and a house pet!

These were just some of his many failures. These were the memories that drifted to the surface, when he allowed any of the doors to open, so he concentrated on not concentrating on them. He would keep the doors closed. The few times he’d allowed himself to access a door that he sensed held a pleasant sensation behind it, it never failed to also house a good deal of regret and shame. He didn’t want to think about what was behind the ones that felt icy and dreadful to the touch.

He’d rest here for now, safe in the darkness with fragments of pleasant memories he’d retrieved. Hot tea. The winter where he’d had a winning streak of seventeen consecutive Risk victories. Nirvanah’s embrace. He had no memory of how he’d gotten here, and only a sinking suspicion of where he was. Confirming it might open the doors, after all.

“You don’t know what he’s like.” Lister sighed, as he rummaged through his collection of adapters to find one suitable for the AR machine. “Like this one time, when we were playing a total immersion video game. It was supposed to give you whatever you desire, right, but Rimmer’s mind couldn’t accept anything good happening, not even when he knew it wasn’t real. Totally smegging ruined it for all of us. Thing is, I think the problem’s not with the hardware anymore, it’s him, the man, the mind, the software. The bee is intact, the data’s maybe ninety percent what it should be. You said that in theory, ten soft resets should have woken him up, right?”

Kochanski frowned, a small crease forming between her brows. “Actually, one or two should have done it.”

“Right. So I’m going in. Listen, I’ve told you a dozen times already, I’ve done this sort of thing before. You just got to watch me and monitor the machine. The drive is fixed, now it’s just between me and him.” Lister gave her what he hoped was a confident grin. “I won’t be but ten minutes, Krissie. Trust me.” He adjusted the last of the AR gear and tried to look convincing.

She nodded, and opened her mouth to scold him for his ludicrous plan one last time, and when she closed her mouth without having come up with an objection, he knew that he’d won. Seeing the lingering concern in her eyes as he leaned back into his chair, he felt slightly guilty. “I can come out anytime, remember, just clap my hands.”

“Right.” She said finally, and soon her hand on his shoulder ceased to be there. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he reached out to feel with his hand. His fingers met with cool steel panels, much like the ones on Red Dwarf. Beneath him, though, the floor felt crooked. He stood on worn, slightly warped hardwood floors, leading the way down a gloomy hallway, tapering down to a thin point somewhere off to the horizon. His skin prickled as he felt that he could not even extend his arms fully from side to side. Biting his lip, he concentrated on the horizon, which promised a long, if narrow, space ahead.

He could hear a dull roar of whispers, like a talk radio program that wasn’t fully tuned in with the volume tuned down. One of the voices seemed to be calling his name. It was nothing that he could hear clearly, but rather something he could sense. The thought of Lister hovered behind a door panel, warm and smooth to the touch. Curiously, he slid his palm over the panel, wondering if he dared to press the release button.

Suddenly, he was knocked off balance by a force in the darkness. It was as though the entire world had turned in on him and knocked him away from the door for just a split second. A moment later, he was face to face with the man that he’d longed to see for months, now looking down on him in confusion and rage. He held Lister’s wrists in his hands, and Lister was too shocked to shake him free as he felt his body slam against the wall. “Don’t touch that!” Rimmer half screamed, half growled. It was a desperate tone of voice that Lister had never heard before.

“Rimmer!” he gasped, his eyes widening. The older man stiffened, his chest heaving erratically as he met Lister’s eyes for the first time. “Who are you?” Rimmer demanded, his voice low and trembling. He was certain that he knew this man. He’d seen him in the data that he’d pushed back, but the thought of the data made flesh, here with him; of the data coming to life, chilled him to his core.

“Rimmer… It’s me… Lister, remember? Dave Lister? Come on, I know that you… remember.” Lister’s eyes drifted towards the door. “That’s what you’ve got in there, isn’t it? Me?”

“You? I haven’t the faintest idea of what you mean.” Rimmer’s arms were trembling. Now that he’d subdued the intruder, he wasn’t sure of what to do next. He only knew that the other man was less frightening than the thought of opening the doors and letting the data loose, drowning him in despair like a flood from a broken dam.

“Listen, Rimmer… Arn… I’m a friend, okay? What you’ve got behind that door are memories. You’ve gotta open the door so that you can remember who you are, who I am. It’s not all bad, I promise. I won’t touch it, okay? You can do it.”

“I don’t want to!” Rimmer blurted out, his grip tightening in frustration. “I don’t want to remember it, okay?” Now that he had gotten himself into this situation, he couldn’t get out. If he let Lister go, there was no telling what would happen.

Rimmer’s eyes were moist; his nose was twitching, his lip trembling. Lister was suddenly reminded of a documentary that he’s seen one night a lifetime ago while curled up with Kris, his Kris, about rabbits. Rabbits, the dull narrator had explained, were prey animals, and lived in constant fear of predators. Their little hearts would beat into panicked frenzy, they would twitch and shake from head to toe, and it was possible to literally frighten one to death. For a split second, the similarities were uncanny. “I swear I won’t touch it, or you, or do anything that you don’t want me to.” He said, quietly. “Just let me go, okay?”

Rimmer’s eyes narrowed to glaring slits. “Fine. But I’m warning you, miladdio, one false move-“

“Look, I told you I’m a friend.” Lister sighed. “I’m the best friend you’ve got. Right now, I’m all you’ve got.” Slowly, Rimmer nodded, and released him. Lister rubbed his wrists and suppressed a grin as he noticed that Rimmer was similarly nursing his own fingers. “Truce, then.” He said, gently.

“Truce.” Rimmer agreed.

“Please trust me.” Lister said. “You’ve got all of these memories locked up in there. You put these barriers up. I’m not gonna lie, you have a lot of smeggy thoughts lurking in there, but it’s not all bad. I really, really need to talk to you, but you have to remember everything first or you’ll never get better. So just break down that door.” he urged. “I need you to come back. I need you to remember.”

Something about that voice registered a feeling of assurance inside of Rimmer, and he brought his hand down on the release button before he could lose his nerve. It was just as he’d feared, and just as Lister had promised. He was drowning, but not all of it was so terrible. Just most of it.

Kochanski gasped as Lister’s body jolted for a second time. She clutched his hand and resisted the urge to pull his helmet off. Muscular spasms were normal in artificial reality, she reminded herself, and if anyone knew their way around an AR machine it was Dave Lister.

Her reassuring train of thought was derailed as the hand in her own suddenly went limp. Her breath caught as she scrambled forward to confirm what she had feared. Once again, the light bee’s motor was silent.


	5. Chapter 5

“Of all the irresponsible, foolhardy things you’ve ever done, this is by far the most horrible!” Kryten yelped, gesturing to where his favorite human in the whole of the universe lay unconscious, tangled in wires. “You have put Mister Lister in the most terrible danger, and it is downright inexcusable! Now, listen here, I’ve kept quiet for long enough, but it’s about time that you realized –“

“Oh, you’ve kept quiet, have you?” Kochanski snapped, glaring up from the medi-scan device that she’d connected to monitor Lister’s vital signs. “Since when have you ever been quiet, Kryten? Ever? You think I’m happy about this, do you? “ Kochanski rose from her seat and advanced on the mechanoid. “You think I want to lose him? You think I want to be held responsible for this for the rest of my life, drifting through deep space aimlessly with you for the next several decades?” Her voice rose in pitch and cracked.

Kryten watched in horror as she snatched a plate of finger sandwiches he had brought to the table and flung it across the midsection. The dish shattered against the galley door with a satisfying crack, sending shards of ceramic and a scattering of cream cheese and jam triangles across the narrow hallway.

“Ma’am…” Kryten began,aghast. Kryten, who could keep calm and objective during crash landings and encounters with bloodthirsty GELFs , found that he could not cope with a distraught woman bent on destroying his kitchen.

“Well?” She demanded. She reached for the plate of biscuits. “I’ll do it again!’ she threatened, her voice hysterical. “I really will!”

Kryten flinched.

Kochanski had raised the plate above her shoulder when she was frozen in place by the sound of a deep, soft chuckle. The Cat had set Starbug on autopilot and had been indulging in her antics, and judging by his expression she was putting on the best show he’d seen in months. “Man, you are one crazy bitch when you’re messed with.” He smiled gleefully, briefly flashing his perfect set of sharp teeth.

Kochanski froze in place, feeling sudden embarrassment flush her face to her ears. “Oh God.” She said, setting the biscuits down and covering her face with her hands. She slumped against the midsection wall.

“Ma’am?” Kryten ventured a few steps forward. “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s all right, Kryten.” Kochanski said quietly, rising up from where she’d sunk into a puddle on the floor. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Well, as long as you admit it.” Kryten replied. Kochanski considered glaring at him, but decided that her dignity was damaged enough for one day.

“Does this mean the show’s over?” Cat asked, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

“I’m afraid so, Sir.” Kryten said, offering a fresh plate to Kochanski. He eyed her suspiciously for any crockery related malice, even as she accepted the peace offering with a mumbled thanks.

Cat leaned over the medi-scan paddle, watching as a display of rapidly blinking lights flashed across the screen. “Hey, Officer bud babe, you’re back online.” He called. “I think they’re both all right.”

Kochanski and Kryten both leapt forward at once. “Don’t.” Kochanski said, as she intercepted Kryten’s wrist. “If you try to disconnect him now, it could cause neurological damage. Let him see this through. It’s what he wants.” She added, hoping that last bit of information would sink in to Kryten’s programming. Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand, and nodded, stiffly.

Lister awoke with a groan. Rimmer was sprawled across the floor beside him, barely conscious. His fingers spasmed, as though he were in a deep, discordant sleep. The doors were gone now, leaving them with a wide open space on the worn hardwood floor. The darkness was now akin to an ambient dusk, a violet blue haze which was desolate but not as confining as where they had found themselves before.

He sat up with some effort, and pulled Rimmer’s limp body against his side, supporting him with an arm around his waist. He let the other man’s head rest on his shoulder, and leaned his face into the mess of brown curls. He drew back as Rimmer awoke, dazedly sitting up fully and blinking at the artificial dusk he had created. “Lister?” he mumbled, taking in his new surroundings.

Lister felt a surge of elation in his chest. He had succeeded. “You remember me now?”

Rimmer frowned. “Of course I remember you, you stupid goit. It would take a double lobotomy to forget that sort of mental trauma.” He ran his fingers through his wild hair, and felt the floor beneath him, a puzzled look on his face.

Lister chuckled softly. “Yeah, well, you just came through the hologramatic equivalent. Do you remember, Rimmer? Do you remember me comin’ for you, and opening the doors?” Lister pressed.

Rimmer’s eyes widened, and he was quiet for a moment. “That was real?” he asked. “It felt like… some sort of nightmare.” He scratched his fingernails along the grooves in the hardwood planks, nervously.

Lister nodded. “It did.” He agreed. “We’re inside of you right now. Well, inside of your light bee’s programming. I came in on the AR machine. You were repressing the memories that I’d uploaded, and you needed to access them because I think that’s what was holding you back from coming back online.”

“I… see.” Rimmer said. “What happened, exactly? Why are we here?”

“What do you remember about Ace?” Lister asked, meeting Rimmer’s eyes and placing a comforting hand on his arm. At the sound of the name, Rimmer’s lips drew back into a snarl of distaste.

“That ponce is responsible for this?” He asked.

“Well… in a way. Let me put it this way. What’s the last thing you remember to be absolutely, positively real before you and me in here?” He watched those expressive hazel eyes that he’d missed so much as they reflected on an answer.

“Ace was there.” He confirmed. “He wanted me to take his place, be the next Ace Rimmer. You didn’t think I could do it.” He added, coldly. “Then… Then there’s a blank. I remember talking to you, but I don’t remember what we said. I remember… I remember it hurt, a lot. I remember Ace showing me the… Wildfire, yes that’s the thing’s name. The rest is all like a crazy dream.” He let out a shuddering sigh, and Lister squeezed his arm.

“Yeah, it all fits. That night you remembered is the last time you recorded your memories on Starbug. It’s the last uncorrupted data I’ve got. The rest of it was on your hard light drive when it was damaged. All those things really happened, Arn. You were really Ace. You really did it. You were a hero, but it… it got you in the end.” Lister’s voice broke, and he coughed, looking down so that Rimmer wouldn’t see that his eyes were suddenly moist.

“You told the next Ace that you didn’t want to be with the other Rimmers. You told him to bring you home… so he did. He brought what was left of you back to me, and Kris and I spent months fixing you-“

“Kochanski?” Rimmer spat out the question. “You have Kochanski on board now?”

“Well, yeah, in a manner of speaking.” Lister said. “She’s not the same though. She’s from another dimension. She doesn’t look or act exactly the same as you remember.”

“Well.” Rimmer crossed his arms. “I can’t help but wonder, Listy, why you went through all the bother to fix me when you’ve got Kochanski to keep you busy.”

“Oh, not you, too.” Lister sighed. “Listen. This Kris is just a friend. I’m not making the crew sick by followin’ her around Starbug like a goldfish turd, okay? She isn’t interested. Even if she was, she’d never be the same as the Kris that we knew. It took me a long time to accept that, because it hurts like hell to admit that you’ve lost someone you love.”

Rimmer suspected that he should feel guilty for provoking this response, but instead he felt vindicated. He wisely decided to keep it to himself.

“Anyway.” Lister continued. “I let you go because I knew that you needed to play the hero. You had something to prove to yourself, I guess. I pushed you away, and I regretted it when you were gone. I missed you.” He admitted, in a small voice. “I would dream about you, even. I worried every day, and when Ace came back with what was left of your bee, I knew then I was right, that I’d- I’d killed you.” He swallowed, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Rimmer listened in morbid fascination. “You really missed me?” He finally asked. There were a dozen more questions clawing at his throat to be spoken, but he found himself advancing in cautious steps, not wanting to shatter the moment that he and Lister shared, where the other was accepting and needing without falsehoods.

Lister nodded. “Do you believe it now?” he asked, bitterly. “Do you see that you can be everything you hated about him? Is that good enough for you?” Please, he thought. Don’t let this all be for nothing.

“I don’t remember any of it. It might as well have happened to someone else.” Rimmer replied, grimly. “Do you believe that I’m more than just… this?”

“What you are is fine with me, Rimmer. There’s nothing wrong with what you are. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I know that you’re a good man. What your family thinks, what the Space Corps thinks, what does that matter now? They’re all gone now. All that matters is what you think. What I think doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.” Rimmer said, miserably. “I only went for you.” He regretted the words as soon as he’d spoken, cursing them for leaving him feeling so exposed.

“Would you come back for me, too?” Lister asked.

Rimmer nodded, dumbfounded. Here, he was certain that Lister could see right through him; how could he doubt the answer?

“All right, then, let’s figure out a way out.” Lister said, getting to his feet and offering Rimmer a hand up. Once on his feet, Rimmer found himself pulled into a tight hug, which he returned with an enthusiasm that surprised him. When he finally broke the embrace, Lister kept hold of his hand, and Rimmer didn’t pull it away.


	6. Chapter 6

What was probably an hour ago, Rimmer had followed Lister with his head and his hopes held high, secretly pleased that Lister had thought highly enough of him to shed a tear when he thought that Rimmer wouldn’t notice. It was the embodiment of his fondest childhood fantasies, where he’d imagine himself running away from home, or, in his more miserable moments, perhaps he’d daydream himself dead from some horrible accident or incurable disease. Then, surely, his family would realize just how sorry they were, and how much they missed him! He could almost imagine the pristine mask of his mother’s face cracking into a theatric display of grief, but somewhere along the way it always morphed into the faces of the women he’d seen cry in the movies. Once, he had made the mistake of disclosing his thoughts to his brothers in the heat of an argument, and Howard and Frank had decided to test his theory, leaving him tied up in a tree in the hopes that he’d eventually starve to death. It had taken him until morning to untangle himself, and he had been grounded for a week for going missing. Oddly enough, this only served to reinforce his fantasy. Perhaps in this next instance, he’d imagine having two distinct forms of cancer simultaneously, if that didn’t make them feel horrible, what could?

Twenty minutes into the excursion, Rimmer’s chipper mood was flagging. Lister had begun the journey with a confident stride, but was now mumbling about programming and was crouching down to run his hands along the smooth wooden planks every few yards.

“You don’t have the foggiest idea of where we’re going. You’re leading us in circles, aren’t you.” Rimmer’s tone was smug, it was clear that this wasn’t a question.

Lister didn’t need to lift his head to know that the hologram’s face was contorted into a snide smirk, all flared nostrils and crinkled cheeks. If they were both doomed, Rimmer could always find a silver lining in Lister’s misfortune. “Your programming’s showing through the floor.” he replied, tapping the ground. “I’m trying to follow the code out, but it’s pretty complicated. You’re quite a piece of work.” He raised his eyes to Rimmer and gave him a teasing smirk, tracing his finger in slow circles across the worn planks.

He was treated to the sight of Rimmer’s face falling, having suddenly gone pale as he tried to work out the depth and breadth of what Lister had implied. Oh, how he’d missed this.

Rimmer stammered. “Don’t go poking around in my head, those are my private thoughts!” he barked, his face turning red. “Just find a way out without sticking your grubby, curry stained hands where they don’t belong, it’s disrespectful, rude, and… and absolutely smegging disgusting.”

Lister chuckled under his breath, feeling the warmth in his chest spread throughout his body. “Whatever you say, man.” He grinned, leading them forward again. He followed the ghost trail of code, wondering what he would see if he were part of it, as Rimmer was; not that he’d set his mind at ease by letting him know that he simply didn’t have the parts needed to decipher the electronic mind and memories. Not for the first time since he’d come here, he wished that he did. Somewhere between Rimmer’s departure for dimensions unknown and the sleepless nights spent hunched over a disassembled light bee, he’d developed a longing that he could no longer deny to himself, and the destruction of the bee had made him examine those feelings long and hard. For Lister, over a year had passed, a year filled with regret and realizations; yet Rimmer barely remembered his time as Ace. As far as the hologram was concerned, he’d barely been away for a weekend. Lister felt a sudden shyness at this thought, realizing that this was the first time he’d thought of Rimmer in that way while in his presence. He’d only just become comfortable with the thought that he didn’t want to live without him, and had thought nothing of pressing his lips to the shell of the dead light bee while murmuring reassuring promises. Now that Rimmer could actually hear him, though, saying even half of those things was unacceptable. He glanced over his shoulder and looked quickly away as Rimmer met his gaze.

“Tell me about Kochanski.” Rimmer finally said, falling into step alongside him a few moments later.

“What about her?” Lister asked, cautiously.

“I want to know what to expect. I was as unwelcome with that crew as an outbreak of herpes when I left, in case you’d forgotten. If I’ve got to deal with a superior officer who’s hormonally unstable the least you can do is tell me how bad it is.” Rimmer glared at him. “What did you do to get Kochanski? You’ve wanted her hologram for years. Is she a suitable replacement?”

He wasn’t sure if Rimmer was asking if Kochanski was a suitable replacement for his Kris, or for Rimmer himself. Either way, the answer was no, but he wasn’t about to say that, and he told himself that Rimmer wasn’t ready to hear it. “She’s not a hologram, I told you. She’s from an alternate dimension. It was all a big accident.” He answered, shoving his hands in his pockets. He scuffed the toe of his boot across the ground and frowned.

Rimmer’s nose twitched. “That’s supposed to make me feel better, is it? I’ve been outranked and she’s alive. Marvelous news for me, Listy. I’m lucky I still outrank the toaster.”

Lister stopped in his tracks. “Rimmer, man, why are you doing this?” he sighed. “She’s got nothin’ against you. Without her, I couldn’t have brought you back. You know this sort of technology’s beyond me. She’s the one that stood by me when everyone said I was crazy.”

“So, what you’re telling me, Listy, is that I owe a debt to Kochanski for helping you resurrect me so I can go back to Starbug, where I’m universally despised, have been overthrown by a mechanical toilet scrubber, and can’t even have a cup of tea that doesn’t taste of your piss.” Rimmer’s arms were crossed, and his hazel eyes were narrowed to shining slits. “I’m sure you’re distracted by her most of the time, so why’d you do this to me? Is it a laugh for you, then?”

The accusation knocked the breath out of Lister’s chest, the sudden pain of the blow replaced by a wave of hot anger. “You have no idea of the hell that you put me through.” He said quietly, his voice shaking slightly as his fingers balled up into fists. “I don’t care what Kryten and the Cat say about you, I don’t care if Kris or Kryten are the ones givin’ the orders on Starbug, but don’t you ever dare say that this is a smegging joke to me, you hear?”

Rimmer’s eyes widened, and he took a step back.

“I’ve been without you for over a year, Arn. Alone with the knowledge that I’d killed you. You don’t remember that time. You don’t carry that guilt. I needed you, and that time and guilt was my punishment, so if anyone owes a debt to Kris it’s me, understand? So I’m sorry that I don’t have a red carpet to roll out for you, or the glamorous life of Ace Rimmer to offer you.”

Rimmer faltered. “That’s not what I meant.” He darted his eyes away, looking down. He looked frustrated and flustered, and Lister wished more than ever that he could read those encoded thoughts.

Lister bit his lip and sighed. “All right.” He moved forward, bridging the gap between them. “Look… let me be honest about Kris. She’s really something, you know, but she’s not my Krissie. It’s like… like they could be sisters, you know. She looks and sounds similar, but not exactly like I remember. She’s so serious all the time. Really uptight. In fact, sometimes she reminds me of you.” Lister chuckled, and Rimmer rolled his eyes.

“Oh, ha-ha, smeg for brains. Get on with it.” he snapped.

Lister smiled sadly at him. “There’s not much else to say.” He said. “In her dimension, I was the one who was brought back as a hologram. That’s the Lister she’s in love with, I don’t get a second look. I like to think of it as the perfect mismatch, you know. She looks at me and sees all the ways that I’m not him, and I see all the ways that she’s not her. She doesn’t smile as much as I like, and when she does, she doesn’t have that pinball smile I was so crazy about, you know. It’s just not the same, but still, she’s really great. I think you’ll like her, Arn. Give it a chance, will ya? I don’t know how to handle it if you hate her. I’ve got enough trouble with Kryten on the rampage.”

“Kryten hates her?” Rimmer asked, a sudden smirk coming to his lips.

“Yeah.” Lister grumbled. “He’s insane, man. Gone totally bonkers with jealousy. He’s convinced that I’m going to abandon him and have a dozen kids with her. She doesn’t deserve it. No matter how many times I tell him that nothing’s gonna change the way I …” Lister’s train of thought was derailed by the sound of Rimmer’s laughter. He had missed the sound of that laugh more than he’d realized, the soft, deep sound from Rimmer’s chest that made him smile widely and his eyes light up in a mischievous way. Maybe it wasn’t a smile like the winning display of a pinball machine, but it was something perhaps even more amazing. It was smile that was literally made of light.

“You know…you should smile more.” He found himself saying.

Rimmer looked as though he was about to answer, when his head snapped to attention and his expression abruptly clouded over. “Lister. We have to turn around.” He said tersely, tugging on Lister’s arm.

“But we’re almost-“Lister turned to see what had made Rimmer lose his nerve. Several yards forward, the wooden planks rotted away, and a transparent wall of noxious greens and blues rose high into the nonexistent dark sky. A feeling of dread and nausea overtook him the longer he stared at the slowly swirling patterns of murky color. “Smeggin’ hell, what is that?” he choked, turning away to face the shadows.


	7. Chapter 7

Rimmer felt the familiar gnawing in the pit of his stomach, the quickening of his pulse as he broke into a cold sweat. Whatever was in that noxious wall of mist was far worse than the memories he’d repressed, it was the potential of the worst case scenario, the fear of the unknown, Murphy’s Law laid out before them in a great, stinking barricade.

 _Sir, when you died you were recreated as a hologram and your exact personality was refined to an algorithm and duplicated electronically. If that algorithm contained a flaw, that flaw would be duplicated also._

Rimmer sunk to his knees, shaking. He couldn’t run. If there was one hard lesson he’d learnt throughout his existence, it was that you couldn’t run away from yourself, no matter how desperately you tried.

 _Kryten, I don't want the others to know about this. I want you to behave as if everything's absolutely normal._

“Rimmer, you okay, man?” Lister knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Rimmer raised his eyes from the crook of his elbow and took a shuddering breath. His face was red and his breath was ragged. “Don’t. Just… don’t.” he stood up, his legs shaky. “We can’t go this way, that’s for sure. Better retrace our steps and formulate a plan.”

 _It's not common, but it's possible for a hologram to die._

Lister drew back his hand, reluctantly. “We got no choice.” He said, turning to unsuccessfully meet Rimmer’s eyes, which darted from his gaze. “It’s forwards or back at this point. I don’t like the looks of that thing any more than you do, but we’ve got to get through this. We’ll crack the coding and figure out what’s gone wrong.”

Rimmer clenched his fists. “You can’t just fix or debug me or whatever it is you have in mind, you know. It’s more complicated than that.”

Lister regarded him with those deep, soulful eyes, as though he understood. Goit. “I know, I know.” He began. “Since I… since you’ve been gone, see, I spent all my time learning whatever I could about holograms. I think I can figure it out if I give it time-“

“It’s part of me.” Rimmer said, tensely. “Since I was alive, and it’s part of my core programming. There’s nothing to figure out, so we can stop investigating this particular course of action right now. Isn’t there some other way around it?” His entire body was vibrating with tension. He felt himself flush hot with shame as he regarded the physical manifestation of this flaw; half biology and half technology gone wrong, a sick joke that had followed him through to death like a rotting albatross.

“Smeg.” Lister said, softly, as he looked between the code and Rimmer’s shaking form. “It’s that nervous condition you have, isn’t it? The thing with the T count?”

Rimmer’s jaw hung open for a moment. “Kryten told me.” Lister said in explanation, shuffling his feet. “After your medical…”

“After I ordered him not to?” Rimmer crossed his arms. “I expected as much.” His tone was defeated, and the rant Lister was expecting never came.

“He didn’t mean any harm.” Lister said, moving closer. “I think… he just wanted us to understand why you were acting the way you were, you know. Everyone’s got a breaking point.” Lister sighed. Kryten’s explanation had soothed the anger and betrayal he’d felt that day, but those memories were not wounds he wished to open, especially not while inside of Rimmer. “Listen, what’s the big deal here? I’ve seen the psy-moon. What’s so different about this?”

“There are things in there I don’t want you to see.” Rimmer said, stiffly, the memories of his most recent death all too clear in his mind; his clumsiness, his panic, his fear as he failed as Ace. “Can’t a man have some privacy, some dignity? Or is that too much for me to ask?”

“Right now it is, yeah.” Lister said, with a sigh. “I don’t like doing this to you, you know. I swore to myself that if there was a way to find you I would find you, no matter what it took. We’re almost free, but in order to get out we have to go through this. Shh, Arn…” Lister pulled Rimmer close as he stood rigidly in place, trying to show no emotion. The more he fought it, the more it looked to Lister like he was on the brink of tears. Rimmer didn’t resist, but he didn’t reciprocate, either. “Maybe it was selfish of me, you know, Maybe you were right about that, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m gonna have to see whatever it is that you’re hiding in there. I’m sorry that I dragged you back from the dead, twice. I’m sorry I’ve brought you face to face with something that could kill you a third time. I’m sorry that no one else ever loved you, you know.”

“And you do?” Rimmer croaked out, skeptically. He was in no mood for one of Lister’s wind ups.

“I’m gonna prove it.” Lister said, releasing him. “The way I see it, the only way back to reality is through that code. With your condition, there’s no way you can break through it without having an electronic aneurism, right? Except, I think that I can hold it back. If I stay here and manipulate the code from inside, you have a chance to get out.”

“But what about you?” Rimmer asked, his eyes widening. “You have no idea what’s going to happen! It could kill you, too, you know. Or maybe you’ll be stuck here forever. You can’t do something like this without knowing what’s going to happen!”

Lister shrugged. “I knew the risks when I came here.” He replied. “If you come to, pull my helmet off. That should bring me back. If I die in the process, then we’re even, hey?”

“You didn’t kill me.” Rimmer whispered, after a moment. “I wanted this.”

“I pushed you.” Lister sighed. He looked up at the obstacle before them, and then back at Rimmer. “Remember the plan.” He said. Rimmer nodded, and stifled a surprised noise as Lister lunged upwards and caught his lips in a fierce kiss. He was still recoiling in shock as Lister fell away, and broke into a sprint towards the wall of code. Speechless and still feeling the ghost of the warm, firm pressure on his mouth, Rimmer followed.


	8. Chapter 8

There were shades of memories that were permanently ingrained in Rimmer’s psyche, which could never be fully contained, such as the fear of a father that thought nothing of cuffing his child’s jaw when he was unable to solve an equation, or, failing that, perform his piano recital piece without flaws. From this vantage point, the world seemed troublesome indeed, filled with sadistic brothers, cruel headmasters, and a seemingly never ending cast of military personnel, each one nipping at his heels so that the only sane thing to do was to attempt to rise in their ranks, to the point where none of them could hurt him.

Lister was familiar with this neurosis that permeated every fiber of Rimmer’s being, and the memories flitted around the edges of his mind, a jumpy white noise. Lister eased into the anxiety carefully, bristling slightly as though it were a particularly itchy turtleneck sweater. He found that he could pull back the edges of the barrier code, perhaps enough for Rimmer to get by. Rimmer was almost there, and Lister looked down, almost shyly, not wanting to meet the other’s eyes after kissing him, especially not when he had such a demanding task ahead of him. Rimmer paused for a moment before him, gathering his determination, perhaps. It was hard to tell when he couldn’t meet those eyes.

“Go.” Lister said. “I’ll be fine. I won’t interfere more than I have to.”

Lister was beginning to wonder if he would be fine. He was beginning to wonder if he would even survive. There was something lurking just beyond the walls, searching out his presence. His skin was beginning to prickle, as though something was lying in wake, ready to attack him. To his relief, Rimmer was not put off by curt orders, and nodded. He watched as Rimmer braced himself, ready to sprint through the gap that Lister was making by holding back the trickle of cold panic that was threatening to become a burst dam. He watched Rimmer until he could no longer see the hologram through the solidified code, and turned his focus inwards, hoping to find something akin to the eye of the storm from which he could manipulate the chaos around him.

Keeping his word to Rimmer about not interfering would prove to be difficult, since there were so many things that he didn’t want Lister to see. Rimmer didn’t want him to know that he had taped his photograph into the cockpit of the Wildfire, that he’d sometimes talk to it quietly under his breath, so softly that not even the Wildfire could hear; locking eyes with the image and promising it that he would be brave, and that he would someday make him proud. The Polaroid had become ragged and faded over time and missions, but Rimmer had repeated this ritual so often that Lister could see his own dark eyes staring back at him, and barely noticed how muted the colors had become.

Most of all, Rimmer did not want him to see his final moments as Ace, a memory that harbored more shame than his original demise, for Rimmer had broken his vow to himself and to Lister, unbeknownst to the other until now. He had not been brave. He had barely been coherent. Lister cried out involuntarily at the memory of the simulant leaning in for the kill, his grimy face twisted into a grotesque mask of pleasure at another’s pain.

When the trigger was pulled, Rimmer had closed his eyes tight, and screamed. His life and death did not pass before his eyes. There was no time to consider a poignant last thought or to issue a witty, defiant retort to his murderer’s taunts. There was only that terrified sound, part scream, part whimper that was his name. Lister paled, feeling ill. Rimmer’s last thought had not been of himself. He hadn’t cried out for his parents, or for Nirvanah, or for a merciful God to protect him. It had been his instinct, his dying wish, to simply be delivered to Lister’s side, one last time, and as quickly as the want was uttered, the bee was shattered. In that moment, Lister despised himself with a ferocity he hadn’t thought possible. The simulant’s trigger finger might as well have been his own. “I’m sorry.” He choked out. “…oh, darlin’… I’m so sorry.” He didn’t push the memory away. He deserved this pain, he told himself, for sending this man away to die, yet again, by himself.

Another memory, this one his own, conjured from the depths of his despair. It’s such a delicate thing… yes, that is what he had thought when gazing at the ruined light bee that he had cradled in his palms for countless, hopeless hours, and found himself both amazed and grateful that the bee had survived partially intact instead of being twisted and melted beyond recognition like the girders that had taken the brunt of the blast, yet had not done enough to save him.

He could feel himself struggling now, fighting against the riptide of despair that was sucking him down into its murky depths, competing with the ever present anxiety that was clawing at his chest and gripping at his throat. He needed to calm down, for both of their sakes. If he could not hold this back, then Rimmer would never escape intact. He focused on getting through this, on reality, on Starbug, where they belonged. Kryten would be worried sick, no doubt, and Kris… he would need to thank Kris, somehow, when this was all over. Kris, his superior, with her humorless, cold green-blue eyes, who Lister lusted after mindlessly, would surely realize what a waste reviving him had been. She would have him turned off once it became apparent how utterly useless he was… his superior, he would have no choice but to obey her orders and surrender his life, and his love. Only… he couldn’t be turned off, could he? He was alive. Lister’s head began to spin. The eye of the storm had become unstable, and it was difficult to tell where Lister ended and where Rimmer began, and if he was feeling resentment or a muted lust for Kris, and which one of them was the lust radiating from, anyway?

Lister, and perhaps a bit of Rimmer, realized that he couldn’t do this for much longer. His blood was pounding, his chest constricting, his breathing too rapid to focus. When he felt himself lose balance and lurch forward, there was nothing he could do but fall. A strange sensation overtook him, as he hurtled downwards, while his organs seemed to be rising. The world seemed to dissipate around him, and suddenly, the rest of his body followed a painful tug, ever upwards.


	9. Chapter 9

Lister gasped for air as his consciousness returned, the feel of the AR machine gear a solid weight against his skin, the familiar feel of the seat beneath him grounding him in reality. Slowly, his memories returned, as though he was waking from a bizarre dream.

“He’s awake!”

“Sir?”

“Dave? Dave, can you hear me?” a soft, small hand pressed against his cheek. Lister’s vision came into focus. Krissie… he was alive. His heart skipped a beat in worry as he unsuccessfully attempted to sit up. Gently, she pushed him back, and he relaxed as he caught sight of Rimmer sitting beside him, uncharacteristically quiet, but real, and solid.

“I’m fine now.” Lister sighed. More than fine, actually. He squeezed Kochanski’s hand, and reached for Rimmer’s, but they were tightly clasped in his lap, Lister’s gesture unaccepted. Still, he had them both. His family was whole, and he silently vowed that he’d never make the mistake of driving away any of them again. His face cracked into a smile, and he brushed off Kochanski and Kryten’s attempts to balance him as he sat up, pulling off the last of the AR straps himself.

“I was so worried, Sir!” Kryten continued, pulling Lister’s weight towards him, making him break contact with Kochanski. Lister patted the mechanoid’s back, and glanced over his shoulder to gaze at Rimmer. He only caught sight of the back of one leg, as the hologram slipped out of the room, unnoticed by anyone else. Lister separated himself, and moved towards the door. “I’m all right, really.” He said. “Maybe a bit hungry.” He added, knowing that the mild complaint would distract Kryten.

“Supper is almost ready, Sir.” Kryten said, feeling a worrying guilt settle over him because he didn’t have a five course meal to present at that very moment. “I should check on it.” He added, making a quick mental inventory of special touches he could add to the meal in the shortest time possible.

“Thanks, Krytes, you’re the best.” Lister sighed, watching him scurry into the kitchen. He turned his eyes on Kochanski. “Kris… I owe you everything.” He murmured. “I promise to thank you proper, but right now, I’ve got to –“

“Go to him.” She said, softly. Lister nodded in gratitude.

Although Starbug’s interior was larger than he had imagined upon first seeing it all those years ago, it didn’t take long to find Rimmer. He stood in the doorway of Kochanski’s quarters, a look of worry and disgust apparent in his face. Lister shuffled his feet behind him. “It didn’t seem proper to make Kris share, bein’ a girl and all.” He explained.

“How long did it take you to get rid of my things, then?” He asked, in annoyance.

“Things?” Lister frowned. “You took what little you had on the Wildfire. Ace, I mean… the new Ace, gave me a trunk with most of it. It’s in my quarters… I guess our quarters, now.”

Rimmer’s lip curled into a snarl. “It smells like apples in here. Or maybe strawberries. A smegging fruit salad. That will never come out of the mattress.”

“Rimmer…” Lister sighed. “You hated this room, anyway. Come stay with me, and you’ll never have to deal with those damn pipes again.”

“There was a reason we stopped sharing a room, you know.” Rimmer spat out, crossing his arms. “You couldn’t stand another moment with me, remember? Couldn’t wait to see me go.” Rimmer snapped his mouth shut, feeling the overwhelming bitterness mix with a self pity deep enough to be grief. He was suddenly terrified that his voice would crack, and he would never give Lister that satisfaction.

The memory of that argument that had been largely forgotten swam to the front of Lister’s mind, filling him with shame. “You were the one that moved out.” Lister said, quietly. “I always said things like that, but you never took it seriously until we lost Red Dwarf.”

“Every man has a breaking point.” Rimmer managed to snap through his aching throat, without losing control of his voice. For once, Lister was right; losing Red Dwarf had been devastating, as though he’d lost a part of himself. That ship was his home, and his sanctuary. Starbug was a poor substitute for the miles of corridors that he had made his own, where he could compose himself in privacy.

“I was an idiot.” Lister said, softly. “Starbug is tight quarters, you know, and at the time, maybe it made sense to live apart. You were being such a smeghead, and I was just a nasty piece of work. It was like we were two animals ready to rip each other apart. Living like this takes its toll.”

Rimmer’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think that now will be any different? It’s even more cramped.”

“Everything is different.” Lister said, sitting on the side of the bed and gesturing for Rimmer to join him. Reluctantly, he did. “I’m not sure why I let you go. I told myself it was to make you happy, to make you whole. Now I see it was also that this life on Starbug made me push you away. I paid for it, Arn. It wasn’t so bad at first, but then…” Lister gulped. How could he say the things that needed to be said? “I missed ya, man. I had dreams about you. I tried to start over, make a clean slate alone, but, well… you can’t control your feelings. Then Ace came, and I thought he was you, and I was gonna tell you how wrong I’d been, and ask you t’stay. Holly was right all along, ya know. I thought I was sane by now, but without you, it’s not enough. None of this is enough without you, do you understand? I felt like I’d killed you. Given you the death sentence. I’ve got a second chance now, and I’ll never make the same mistakes again. Please, just come back to our room.”

Rimmer listened in awe. Had a year that he couldn’t remember have made such a profound impact? Surely, Lister must be delusional. He just didn’t remember how things were, the idiotic, optimistic slob. Maybe, at this very moment, Lister actually believed some of the sentimental drivel he was sprouting. He’d trust Lister again, only to get burned. That was the way it worked, and the way he was certain it would always work. Yet… how he wanted it to be true. How he missed the days when Lister would talk to him without a trace of contempt. How he dreaded a life on Starbug where he was despised more than ever, with no place to hide.

“Fine.” He said, finally. “I don’t have much choice, anyway. There’s no place else to sleep.” He was certain he would regret it, yet when Lister’s eyes lit up like that from the inside, it was easy to trick himself into thinking it was genuine.

“It’ll be different this time, I swear.” Lister’s voice had softened, carrying with it a tone Rimmer had never heard, from him or anyone else, for that matter. He flinched as Lister’s gloved hand touched his cheek, but stilled as the fingers brushed against his simulated skin and into his hair. Every instinct told him to push Lister away, but the gentle touch was so subtle, caressing nerve endings he’d never thought could bring a rush of pleasure. Rimmer’s eyes slid closed as he savored the rare touch.

“ I won’t make but another mistake, darlin’” Lister breathed, as his lips closed over Rimmer’s. Images, unbidden, flooded Rimmer’s mind. _Muted laughter as Lister’s young body flexed under him, silver fabric crinkling as eager fingers clutched his shoulders, pulling away the heavy flight suit. Hands roaming across his back, settling low to squeeze his buttocks in encouragement. Fevered kisses, the faint taste of lager._ Suddenly, Lister was jolted backwards, as the hologram shoved him clear across the bunk.

“Lister. What on Io are you doing?” he snarled. Rimmer’s eyes were wide and manic, and Lister could not be sure if he trembled with fear or rage. Perhaps a bit of` both.

“Kissing you.” Lister said, defensively. “I thought… you were okay with this. I told you how I feel, Arn. I promise I won’t hurt you.” Lister watched in despair as everything he had hoped for came unraveled as quickly as a derailed train on impact.

“Well.” Rimmer said, standing up and smoothing out his uniform frantically, “Well! You thought wrong, miladdio. I don’t… I mean, I’m not. Not like… like that.”

“I’m sorry.” Lister said, quickly. “Let me just explain, Arn.”

“Not now.” Rimmer snapped, heading towards the door.

“Arn… Rimmer! Wait!” he called, falling back against the mattress as the door slid shut behind him. “Smeg.” He hissed, kicking the ceiling of the pristine bunk in frustration. He had come so far, and for what? Maybe Rimmer was right about one thing. Being an optimist wasn’t exactly realistic.


	10. Chapter 10

Rimmer was barely out of the room when he realized that, with Kochanski’s things and Lister in his old quarters, he had no place to go. On Red Dwarf, this would not have been a problem, it was possible to storm off and exist in comfort, peace, and quiet for weeks at a time without encountering anyone- even Holly would let him sulk without interruption. Now, there was no option unless he wanted to curl up in a toilet, broom closet, or air duct. He was officially sharing quarters with the very person he’d run away from, and if he went to that room, Lister could join him at any time.

Kryten would likely be in the kitchen, and he could hear the Cat in the cockpit, singing to himself. With a sigh of resignation, he headed towards the midsection, where he’d have the best chance of sorting out his head. He froze in the doorway as he noticed that the room was already occupied. Kochanski sat at the table, sipping a cup of tea as she typed on a small laptop. It took a few seconds for his body to unfreeze, but it was a second too long. Just as he’d begun to turn away, Kochanski raised her head from her work. “It’s okay, come in.” she said, warmly.

Rimmer’s heart sank. He walked stiffly to the table, and sat, folding his hands in his lap. Kochanski set down the mug, and Rimmer noted with some annoyance that it was his favorite one, white with light blue edges, and not even one crack in the glaze. His nose twitched as it adjusted to the floral smell of the brew. He imagined it must be a bit like drinking perfume, like the time Frank had doused him with their mother’s fussy, musky cologne that people apparently “paid good money for.”

Kochanski offered a small smile, and dread gripped him. He was sitting with an officer, the last officer in existence; and to make things worse, it was Kochanski. A mixture of awe and resentment flushed through him as he stole a glance at her. Lister was right, she did look a little different than he remembered, but he had never really been bold enough to talk to her much in the first place. The difference of the hue of her eyes or the shape of her nose would be lost on him, but her voice was definitely different, carrying a more serious, confident tone.

Years of hearing Lister extol her virtues had made Rimmer secretly develop a bit of a crush on her, or at the very least, the idea of her. Kristine Kochanski, the perfect woman. It was a nice daydream, when he knew it was impossible to settle down with a long dead girl, but when Lister’s schemes to return to her had even a small chance of succeeding, the feelings were incinerated, turned to an angry resentment that he could never quite explain. Now was the time to focus on that daydream, though, if he could just get up enough nerve to talk to her like a regular girl, and map out the curves of her body through her clothing, he could forget why he’d come here in the first place, the feel of Lister’s mouth on him… Rimmer bit his lip, and looked to Kochanski, hoping he’d get lucky and see the outline of her nipples through her shirt, or even an errant bra strap, something, anything, to occupy his mind later.

“I guess, in many ways, we’ve never met.” She began. “But I’ve heard all about you… “

Rimmer grimaced. “Couldn’t you forget what you’ve heard, ma’am?” He wanted a cup of hot tea, in his own mug. Kochanski smirked at that, and Rimmer shot her distrustful look. Why was he so utterly awkward around women?

“I’ve heard good things, I promise. Dave was absolutely useless without you.” She assured him.

Dave. Of course they would be on a first name basis; they’d gone to bed together, after all. Still, the casual familiarity made Rimmer bristle. “He’s useless regardless.” He replied, years of verbal sparring kicking in, although it was halfhearted.

Kochanski regarded him with a curious confusion. “I guess what I want to say, is, well, welcome home.” She patted him on the arm, and took another sip of her herbal concoction.

“Home?” Rimmer asked, softly. This wasn’t home, it was even worse than he remembered. The closest thing to what he considered home had been stolen from them.

Kochanski put her hand on his, and tried to meet his eyes. “Yes, for better or worse, right now, this is home.” There was a quiet sadness in her tone. “You had died, and bravely, I might add, and Dave did everything in his power to bring you back. He loves you, you know. He loves you like only he can.”

Rimmer felt the blood rush to his ears and cheeks, _love_ and _Dave_ were not things that he wanted to think about right then. “He’s got you.” He managed to mutter.

“No, he doesn’t.” Kochanski said, squeezing his hand. The feeling of the currents of energy beneath hard light flesh was both comforting and painful at once. “I’m spoken for.”

Rimmer looked up, and was alarmed to see that she was on the verge of tears. Don’t cry, he pleaded silently. I have no smegging idea of what to do if you get all... hormonal, you stupid woman. “er.” He began, unsteadily. “I’m sorry, I just thought-“

“It’s all right, really.” She said, sitting up straighter as she took a deep breath to compose herself. “I’ll get back to him, someday. I just kept wondering if he’d given up on me yet, you know. I was convinced that he had, but then Dave… your Dave… fought so hard for you that it gave me hope.” She raked back her hair with one hand, and rested her chin on it. “I know it probably sounds soppy and sentimental to you, but it’s true.”

Rimmer nodded, doubtfully. “I’m sorry, Miss Kochanski, ma’am.” He managed.

“You can call me Kris.” She sniffed.

“But..” he hesitated.

“But what? There’s no Space Corps anymore, Rimmer. It doesn’t matter.” The absurdity of the conversation was quickly distracting her from her bout of self pity.

“Of course it matters!” Rimmer stammered. “If we don’t abide by the proper levels of command, we’re encouraging total chaos. Haven’t you been on board this ship long enough to realize how dangerous that is? Ma’am.” He amended, quickly.

Kochanski grinned, trying not to let a chuckle escape her lips. “You do have a point.” She agreed. A thought occurred to her as she watched the nervous technician beside her. “Dave told me that you were promoted before you left.”

“Well.” Rimmer said. He remembered that he had been proud at the time, touched, even. It all seemed a bit shabby, though, when placed beside the genuine article, like tarnished brass to shining gold. “it hardly counts, coming from a third technician.” Really, this was getting to be humiliating. She was mocking him, it was the only sensible reason that she would bring this up.

“It counts.” she assured him. “You’re my equal, so no more of this, all right?” Belatedly, she hoped that she wouldn’t regret those words.

“Thank you.” He said, quietly, unsure of what else to say.

She nodded, and rose from the table. “I’ll be taking my shift, if you need anything.”

Rimmer watched her go, distantly wondering why Lister hadn’t abandoned him for her. His thoughts trailed back to Lister then, Lister’s touch, Lister’s kiss, Lister’s willingness to risk everything for him. It was intoxicating. It was shameful. It was terrifying.

He buried his head in his arms, and wished for answers that didn’t come.


	11. Chapter 11

Lister cautiously entered the room that he now shared with Rimmer, and was relived to see that the other had returned, lying on his bunk , pretending to read. He looked up at Lister, and a blush crossed his cheeks as he sat up, pulling up his knees to his chest. He looked about as vulnerable as Lister felt. He shuffled over to the spare low bunk, and leaned down. “Can I sit?” he asked, softly. Rimmer nodded, looking down at his feet.

Lister sat beside him, turning his head to gaze at the hologram. Over the time that Rimmer had been gone, the months of doubtful regret followed by the months of desperate mourning, Lister had gone over memories in his mind’s eye thousands of times, of Rimmer’s eyes, Rimmer’s curls, Rimmer’s elegant, pale, nervous hands. They were irresistible, unattainable, things that he wished that he knew that he wanted so much sooner. He’d somehow even managed to romanticize those flared nostrils that he used to mock. His memory hadn’t betrayed him, for he found that every bit of the other man, every facet and flaw, was just as he remembered, only more dear to him, because what had been destroyed was now whole, and within arm’s reach.

“Look… I wasn’t lying to you, you know. I meant everything I said to you back there.” He started, hoarsely. “Maybe I’ve done some awful things to you, but… you gotta know that I’m being honest this time. I don’t blame you for not trusting me, but I swear...” Lister shook with the severity of his confession, the awful, urgent feelings that had been building up finding their release. Something inside of him told him that this time, this talk, would count, so he had to choose his words carefully.

“I know.” Rimmer replied, quietly. And that, to him, was the tragedy.

“I-you know?” Lister asked, incredulously. “Smeg.” That could only mean that Rimmer didn’t want him, despite his best efforts. This would be the ideal time to back off, while he still had a shred of dignity… but he wanted this too much. “I cleaned myself up a bit.” He offered. “Maybe I’m not perfect, yeah, but I could make you happy if you let me try. I’ve…” Lister searched his mind for an appealing word. “matured.” He sat up a bit straighter, and rested his hand on Rimmer’s knee, gazing imploringly into his eyes.

Rimmer met them, briefly. Where should he start? Anger was the most urgent, he decided. “I wanted you before any of that.” He said. “The more I wanted you, the more you hated me. You resented what I wasn’t. So then you send me off with Ace, and now that I’m more like him, you can bear to be with me, is that it?” Rimmer hadn’t planned the words. They tumbled out of him, fueled by a long repressed anger. He couldn’t be sure how much he was exaggerating them, because the bitterness behind the words felt so righteous.

Lister watched Rimmer’s rant with mounting panic. “Rimmer, man, it’s not like that.” Maybe just a little like that… but how was he to know that he was too blind to see what he would be miserable without? “I thought tha it would be good for you! I thought maybe if you could just get a taste of it… Maybe it would make up for the things you think you missed out on.” It had been like that, hadn’t it? Lister couldn’t recall how much of his ploy had been selfish and how much was for Rimmer’s true benefit. He was sure that he’d wanted Rimmer to be happy, though. That was what he had to focus on.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow, not certain how much of it he could accept. “I don’t even remember that time as Ace, so if you think you’re getting an upgrade, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Lister sighed. “I know. I guess what I mean is, that maybe it’s for the best, you know? It turned out to be a disaster. I didn’t mean t’send you off to prove anything to me, I wanted you to prove it to yourself. I know that you’re capable of what Ace does.”

“I’m not Ace!” Rimmer’s fingers clenched the sheets until hard light knuckles turned white. Lister winced at the unexpected outburst. “You won’t stop trying to make me into something that I’m not! Well, you did it this time, Listy, you have me back, but it’s just Arnold smegpot Rimmer, and now you have to live with it.”

“Rimmer… what’ve I done to you?” Lister asked, softly. “I never wanted Ace instead of you. I wanted Ace to make you stronger, my Rimmer.” He bit his lip. “I’ll gladly live with it, it’s exactly what I want.” If he said it enough times, would Rimmer relent?

Rimmer looked him in the eyes, long and hard, until Lister was sure that he could see into the depths of his soul. “Fine.” He said, after a long pause. “That still doesn’t make this… right.”

Lister frowned. “How so?” He braced himself for another obstacle, a rationale that could only come from someone like Rimmer. The hologram was better at playing hard to get than the prettiest girl he’d ever dated, and with no experience behind him. How was that possible?

“Well, first off, Kochanski is here.” He said, coldly. “There’s a woman on board, Lister, a living human female.”

Somehow, Lister knew that he wouldn’t be able to escape this inevitable discussion. “I already explained about Kris.” He reminded him, gently. He’d need to steer Rimmer away from this topic. If he got it into his head that this Kris meant more to him than he did, it would ruin everything.

“You aren’t going to revive the human race with a dead man.” Rimmer replied, an edge in his voice.

“Maybe not, but there are ways, you know. I don’t need to remind you that I’ve already given birth. “ Lister considered mentioning the fact that he and Kochanski had essentially given birth to himself, as well , but it was sure to derail the discussion and end in disaster. “Besides, there’s technology, you never know what’s going to happen to us. I’m acting with my heart, Arn. This is what I want. I thought maybe it was what you wanted, too.” He added, indignantly.

“No farm on Fiji?” Rimmer asked, dubiously.

“Well, yeah, if it works out someday, if we ever find Earth.” Lister admitted. “But I want you to come with me.” Was that what Rimmer was waiting for? Did he need a smegging invitation?

Rimmer fidgeted with the blanket under him. “Even so, this doesn’t seem… wrong to you?”

“It’s probably the only thing that’s felt truly right in three million years.” Lister assured him.

“You know what I mean.” Rimmer replied, looking down. “Back on Io, they had… words for people like… like us.” He managed. “People back home were proper. Only … only perverts and criminals think things like this.”

Lister was alarmed to see that Rimmer was just barely holding back tears. “Rimmer…” he began. “We’re not on Io. We’re enlightened twenty third century people, yeah? You’re not doing anything wrong by this.”

“It’s just…” Rimmer struggled to put into words a lifetime on Io. Why was Lister insisting on having this discussion? He squirmed under the uncomfortable spotlight of Lister’s logic.

“What? It’s just that everyone on Io is a religious extremist, and I thought you didn’t believe in all that?” Lister tried. “You’re letting your future be decided by what people would think in a crazy place like that, a place that doesn’t even exist anymore?”

Rimmer sighed. “I don’t. I just feel like…” Like hiding, actually. Rimmer felt a dull ace in his skull forming, the precursor of a tension headache. Maybe everyone on Io was long gone, but he could still see their stern, disapproving expressions clearly in his mind’s eye. Lister was all wrong, they silently scolded him. Wrong sex, wrong family, wrong upbringing, wrong schools… he just wasn’t like them. Rimmer wasn’t quite like them, either, but by choosing Lister for a mate, he would become all wrong, as well. No one would mention his name. They would pretend that he didn’t exist. They would sneer over the blank space he used to inhabit at family functions, each one thinking horrid thoughts but not speaking them directly… or they would have, if only they had still been alive to do so.

“Is it wrong if there’s no one around to tell you it isn’t?” Lister prodded. “No one left to bully or mock you, no one to tell you that you don’t know what’s best for your own life?”

Rimmer looked unconvinced, still. Lister took his hand, gently. “Everyone here knows what you mean to me, Arn. It’s just us, so why can’t we just be happy? Don’t you deserve to be happy after all of this?” Lister was trying to be patient. Here he was doing all the work, and Rimmer still discarded his propositions, when he’d just admitted that at least part of him wanted what Lister did.

Lister’s reason was beginning to sway him, and Rimmer toughened his resolve. He couldn’t give in without going over all of the possible pitfalls, he couldn’t risk regret after taking such a huge step into the unknown. “I had a list, once.” He murmured. “Back on Red Dwarf. All the reasons that I couldn’t let myself do this.” This was embarrassing, now. He was never supposed to have to say anything on the list aloud. It was supposed to remain safely in his possession, reminding him of the rules. It was private. What was even more distressing was that Lister was making sense. As the last human, he pretty much was society, and society seemed all too eager to shag him senseless. If he’d been less wound up, the realization that Lister was the new standard for his species would have infuriated him.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Lister groaned. “You can’t go about everything in life like it’s a Risk tournament, Arn. You can’t plan everything out and make a strategy for things like love. Maybe no one ever told you that, but I’m tellin’ you now.” Lister was beginning to feel as though his own strategy was failing, though. It seemed that no matter what angle he took, Rimmer would find a way to deflect every overture, all his best lines, and even all of his true confessions. He couldn’t just jump the man, though, through the years he’d learned that Rimmer needed to be won over with words and reason, even if it was faulty reason. He had to keep stalling for time, keep rationalizing until Rimmer became comfortable with the idea. He had to be patient.

Rimmer nodded. He was losing. Hell, he wanted to lose. For once, he was glad of Lister’s convincing rambles.

“Does this really feel wrong?” Lister asked, stroking his cheek. Rimmer shook his head, and didn’t resist when Lister leaned in to kiss him. Lister felt a surge of victorious glee as Rimmer gave in. The odds were in his favor again.

Rimmer pulled Lister closer, and somehow, it wasn’t awkward. Disjointed memories surfaced again, and Rimmer was now quite sure that they were more than mere dreams.

“I think Ace did this.” He gasped, as they parted.

“You did this, when you were Ace, you mean.” Lister replied. He frowned slightly. “So who was the lucky guy?”

“I’m pretty sure it was you.” Rimmer replied, with an uncomfortable cough.

Lister smiled then, and pressed close. “Huh. Lucky sod.”

“Interesting choice of words.” Rimmer frowned.

“Stop being so smegging analytical.” Lister chuckled. “So… are you okay with this, now?” Lister looked skeptical.

Rimmer considered it, briefly. He’d already done this, hadn’t he? No sense in turning back now, he reasoned, driven by his rapidly growing desire for the man before him.

“Arn?” Lister asked, losing confidence in the silence that followed.

Rimmer nodded, stiffly.

Lister’s face lit up then, as he leaned in to nuzzle Rimmer’s neck, just under his ear. “Don’t be scared. We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to.”

Rimmer shivered as the words ghosted over his skin. He was painfully aroused now, and quite sure that he wanted everything, smeg, anything that Lister could think of doing. He pulled Lister closer, and considered the human with a possessive gaze for just a moment before deciding on action. Somewhat nervously, he reached for the clasp of Lister’s jumpsuit, but was startled by a loud noise, followed by a vibration through the cabin.

“What was that?” Lister glanced over his shoulder.

“Debris, or something.” Rimmer replied, not caring about much but the task at hand.

“Right.” Lister fumbled with the stubborn clasp himself, his fingers getting in Rimmer’s way. Another loud noise followed, this time the impact throwing them both to the ground. Lister cursed under his breath. “It’s not just a bit of garbage, is it?” he asked, regretfully. Rimmer was on his feet already, damn him, damn all of this! He was so close!

“Blue Alert.” Rimmer replied, snapping to attention.

Lister winced. Whatever was out there was going to get a damn good thrashing from him personally.


	12. Chapter 12

Kryten was worried. It had been several hours since Starbug had crash landed, thankfully on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. He hoped that there was no radiation or contamination that was harmful to humanoids present, because he had a feeling that they might be there awhile. It would be quite some time before the diagnostic systems he needed to gain that information were online, even- if he could get them to work at all. It was difficult to unmelt circuitry. He stared at the charred mess splayed across the table before him in dejected despair, as though it were a deflated soufflé.

“Anything yet, Krytes?” Lister approached him from behind, his boiler suit soiled in grease. He wiped his cheek, leaving it grimy, and cast a hopeful, expectant look to the mechanoid. Kryten could never bear to disappoint him when he wore that expression. He decided that he would do everything in his power to keep Lister optimistic, for as long as possible.

“I’m afraid not much, Sir.” Kryten said, gauging the human’s level of distress and deciding that, as Lister seemed fairly calm, he should downplay his own worries. “There’s a bit of damage to the diagnostic system. A smidgen of loss in the navigation controls, as well.” He shifted uncomfortably, wringing his fingers.

“If by that, you mean that the navigation system has been torn out of the ship and is in orbit around this planet, then that’s about the size of it.” Kochanski responded, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she frowned in concentration. Kryten shot her a nasty look.

“Smeg.” Lister groaned. “Have you at least been able to find out what happened?”

Kryten nodded. “It appears that we were drawn in, quite violently, by some force other than the planet’s natural gravity. Unfortunately, we can only guess at what exactly happened until the diagnostics are up again.”

Lister sighed, leaning tiredly against the console. “I was hoping you had some good news, because we sure don’t. The engine’s a mess. Maybe we’ll have that part sorted by the time you figure out what to do about the diagnostics.”

“I doubt it.” Rimmer replied glumly, trailing behind him. He took his place behind Lister and frowned. “The navigation system took out the third cargo bay, which held the spare parts and tools we need to repair the engine.”

Kryten winced.

“Well, we’ve got to keep trying.” Kochanski set her jaw in a determined scowl. “We are not going to panic, do you understand? We’re going to sort this out in a calm and logical fashion.” She pronounced each word with deliberate clarity, hoping that doing so would penetrate the message in the others’ minds.

The Cat grinned, seemingly unworried by the bleakness of the situation. “I’m with you, Bud Babe. Don’t worry.” He picked up a charred circuit board and gazed intently at it, turning it over in his hands and sniffing at it curiously. Kochanski managed a small, exasperated grin.

“Why don’t you go see if anything we have can be used as makeshift tools.” She suggested.

“Ma’am.” Rimmer replied, honoring her with a short, relatively informal salute. Lister sighed, and took Rimmer’s hand, leading him out of the midsection. After several faltering steps,he rubbed the bridge of his nose, swaying slightly on his feet.

“Lister?” Rimmer eyed him with moderate concern.

“It’s been hours. I’m exhausted.” It was true, he had been running on hope and adrenaline for longer than his body could tolerate. The reality of their situation had taken the wind out of him. “Can we sit and rest a bit?” He stumbled into their quarters, and collapsed onto his bunk. Rimmer sat beside him.

“We’re gonna get through this.” He murmured. He needed to believe that. He held the thought in his mind, thinking the words over as a mantra, until they almost lost all meaning and became incoherent sounds.

“We always seem to.” Rimmer said, in a quiet tone devoid of sarcasm. Lister’s eyes snapped open. Rimmer would only comfort him in this reassuring, yet detached way if their predicament was worse than he suspected.

Suddenly, he was very afraid.


	13. Chapter 13

The Cat arched his back, his every muscle tensed and ready to unfurl, crouched low to the rocky, hard ground beneath him. The tall, weedy grass swayed in the cold wind, each blade bending in turn to the ones beside it. He watched. He waited. A break in the pattern of the movement at last, accompanied by the scent of prey on the wind. The rabbit turned its head, and had only a split second to comprehend the danger it was in before strong, sharp jaws were upon it, and it ceased to have any thought at all.

“Too slow, sucka.” grinned the Cat, as he retrieved a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe his mouth.   
\-------------------------------------------

“Why rabbits?” Kochanski asked, as she cobbled together the dry twigs she’d collected to build a fire.

“What d’you mean, why rabbits?” Lister asked. “It’s food, isn’t it?”

“I mean, it’s only rabbits. Think about it. We’ve been here for almost two weeks already, and I haven’t seen one bird, or been bitten by one bug. There’s no fish in that stream. All that’s here is plant life and rabbits, it’s not natural.”

Rimmer nodded. “It’s been terraformed. Maybe they just didn’t finish populating it, whoever they were.”

“But why would they start with rabbits? Wouldn’t they start with insects, or something a bit lower on the food chain?” Kochanski’s brow furrowed in thought.

Lister shrugged. He surveyed the landscape in the distance, thoughtfully.

Kryten emerged from Starbug, carrying a plate of neatly cubed meat. “Where’s the rest of it?” Lister asked, as the mechanoid slid the meat into a frying pan to cook over the fire.

“It wasn’t a very large rabbit, Sir.” Kryten replied, apologetically. “I do have some dandelion salad to round out the meal.”

Lister shook his head. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t just hear that. Anyway, I meant the rest of it, as in the pelt. I’m saving them.”

“I buried it,” Kryten replied, matter of factly. “Miss Kochanski would be disturbed by the remains, and I don’t want it to attract maggots.”

Kochanski eyed the sizzling meat hungrily. She had initially turned down meals of rabbit stew, rabbit stir fry, rabbit pie, and rabbit roast, but a week of nothing but foliage and stale water biscuits had made her feel faint, and irrationally angry at everything and everyone around her. So now, she devoured the meals, doing her best to not look any of the rabbits she saw around the clearing in the eye. “I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t think there are any maggots here anyway.”

“Is that so.” Rimmer smirked into his cup of tea, but Lister didn’t notice. His eyes were on the horizon again.

“What are you saving them for?” Cat asked. “I want the white ones for a coat. You can have the ugly grayish ones.”

Lister sat beside the fire. “Insulation.” He said. “More than coats, you know, blankets, maybe something to block the drafts… you can have some for your closet next year, once we have enough.”

“Next… year?” Rimmer asked, incredulously, setting down his mug.

“We can’t be here that long, can we?” Kochanski added, worry creasing her brow.

“It seems like the most likely scenario, Ma’am.” Kryten replied brusquely, dishing a steaming pile of rare rabbit into her bowl.

“I’m going to make a hat, too.” Cat interjected. “Last week, I caught two long haired ones. If I get two more, that’s matching cuffs.” He held out his arm, admiring the imagined drape of his handiwork.

“A year.” Rimmer repeated, grimly, staring at Lister in mild disbelief. “That’s your current estimate?”

“Well, no, not really.” Lister murmured. “My current estimate is a hundred years, give or take a few decades.” There was silence as he squirmed under the cold scrutiny of two sets of green tinged eyes. He lowered his gaze and took a large bite of rabbit leg. For a long time, the cracking of the fire is all that saved him from an awful silence.


	14. Chapter 14

Kochanski wandered through the edge of the forest, her oversized shirt tied up in the front to create a makeshift bowl to collect the scattering of wild raspberries she’d discovered. She waded through a dense fog, smelling the crisp air, feeling the twigs snap under her boots. She’d once gathered berries in cyber school, and the atmosphere brought back fond memories of making Linzer tarts with her simulated friends. For the first time in weeks, she wasn’t focusing on their predicament, and as a result, she was happy.

“Krissie.”

“I’m over here, Dave.” She called. She reached for another cluster of ripe berries; they easily came loose in her hand. She deposited them in her shirt, and licked the sticky red juice from her palm, which stained her skin faintly. She shivered in the cold breeze and eyed the fog warily, debating how much farther she was willing to walk in case she should lose her way.

“Krissie, I’ve been lookin’ everywhere for you.” Lister’s voice was soft with worry, and carried with it a shade of sadness. She turned to face him, and stumbled backwards in shock. His hair was shorn; his clothes were clean, and there, gleaming on his brow, the all too familiar H, the lack of which she had only recently acclimated herself. A tremor of nervousness gripped her, and she reached out timidly, to feel his outstretched hand. It was warm and solid, and pulsated with a faint, familiar energy.

She yelped, and threw herself at him, berries scattering at her feet. Her heart thundered inside of her chest, and she was laughing, and crying, and screaming all at once.

“Shh.” He said, holding her at arm’s length, giving her a sweet but solemn look.

“You must compose yourself, Ma’am.”

Her eyes widened as she caught sight of Kryten’s gold chest plate through the fog. She opened her mouth, and closed it, baffled by what was happening. “Kryten…” she began. “Dave… I mean… “

“You simply must be still and quiet, Ma’am.” Kryten said, gently. “It’s most disrespectful to make a scene when people are in mourning.”

“Mourning?” She asked, both puzzled and worried. “Mourning for whom?”

The Cat took her arm and led her through the grassy field. His suit was black velvet, and he wore a band of violet satin around his bicep. A lily drooped from his lapel, and his eyes were dark and sad.

“You’re serious, aren’t you.” She said, her eyes flicking to and from her crewmates. “You aren’t kidding. Someone’s died?”

“Of course.” Kryten said. “You don’t think that we’d joke about this, do you? How tacky!” Kryten shook his head in disapproval; and tutted to himself as he extracted a brush from his casing and smoothed down her windblown hair. “Now don’t make a fuss!”

The ground was oddly mushy under her feet, the clumps of grass uneven and spongy. The Cat stopped suddenly, and bowed his head. Lister placed his hand on her shoulder, and sighed. “We’ve got a lot to thank her for, don’t we.” He murmured.

She pushed his hand off, and glared. “Stop fooling around.” She growled. “This joke isn’t funny anymore. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me right now. Whose funeral are we supposedly attending?”

Lister looked at her, and then through her. “The mother of the human race.” He said, quietly. “I’m sorry, Krissie. I really am.” Then he shoved her chest, and she skidded backwards, loosing her footing on the edge of earth behind her. Her fingers scrambled to catch the few jagged rocks along the steep soil, but she fell, connecting with something cold and soft, softer, yet firmer than the grass above her. In the end, she couldn’t help but look, and a scream escaped her as she looked into lifeless eyes identical to her own.

The next time she opened her eyes, the spongy land was still under her. The fog was gone, and in place of clammy flesh and humid air, there was the smell of wood burning, as the campfire burned through its last embers. Standing up quickly, she hopped over the slumbering bodies of her crewmates, and vomited a stomach full of rare rabbit in the shrubs.


	15. Chapter 15

Lister stripped off his clothing, and threw it onto a flat rock by the river. He nudged the tattered jeans with one toe cautiously, testing their overall stiffness. Even he had to admit that they were overdue for a wash. Kryten had mentioned something about powering the appliances in Starbug with the solar panels. It would be a brilliant idea if it worked, he reflected, easing himself into the brisk flowing water. He waded in until he was waist deep, and then submerged himself, scooping up a handful of sandy soil to scrub his skin with.

The river was one of the nice things about the place, he mused. He’d never had the opportunity to bathe outdoors before, well, never in a river. And never while sober. He felt as though he was in a soap commercial despite the fact that there was no soap to be had. He chuckled to himself at the thought, and was suddenly aware of eyes on him, glaring with enough heat to roast a chicken.

“So, amused today, are we?” Rimmer spat, stomping down the uneven hill. His hair was ruffled and a tiny bit damp. Dust lightly coated him, dulling the shine of his hologrammatic uniform.

“What’s eating you, then?” Lister asked, wading closer to the bank. “Thought you’d be pleased to no end t’ see me having a bath.”

“I would.” Rimmer said, pointedly, “If you weren’t washing your filthy body upstream. You do realize that you are contaminating the camp’s drinking water. Not to mention the washing water. This water you’re in can’t be used twice, Listy.”

Lister sighed, wringing an impressive amount of water from his locks. “You don’t need water, Rimmer, what do you care?” he sighed. “Besides, it’s running water. It’s not gonna hang around.”

Rimmer bristled, and bit his tongue just short of decrying the thought of Lister’s bath water polluting his tea. It would make Lister’s day. Instead, he put forth an idea designed to press on Lister’s guilt. “You really want to risk Kochanski drinking your toilet water? Unfiltered?”

“Hey!” Lister cried. “I don’t piss in the bath, Rimmer.” It wasn’t really a lie. He pissed in the shower sometimes, but that had a drain. He wouldn’t sit in it. A man had to have standards, after all.

“Still.” Rimmer grumbled.

“Since when are you such a gentleman, anyway?” Lister asked, peering up at him.

It seemed to be the wrong thing to say.

“I suppose spending the afternoon building a storage area and plowing a garden to grow vegetables that I don’t need to eat is selfish.” He sneered, crossing his arms. Lister supposed that he did have a point. He sighed, and climbed out of the water, sprawling out on a rock to dry. He gave Rimmer a softer glance.

“It’s not.” He mumbled. “And I really do appreciate it, you know. I mean, I …” He sighed. “I always thought that I’d be good at this sort of life. Build a house and a farm and all, and be the one taking care of business. I should be the one making a living for you and Kris.”

Rimmer was torn between surprise at his own sudden inclusion in Lister’s ridiculous Plan and a seething jealously that he had to share it with Kochanski, even after all this time. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing, sitting beside Lister and trying not to look like he was ogling his nude body. It was perfectly normal to stare a bit, considering that he’d never had a proper look for more than a second or two. Still, he felt a bit ashamed of himself for staring, so he looked down instead.

“It’s a lot like Earth, isn’t it.” Lister murmured.

“I wouldn’t know.” Rimmer replied, toeing a pebble. “Not really, anyway.”

“You’re human, Rimmer. You know it in your blood, even if you weren’t born there.” Lister sat up, and leaned against Rimmer’s side. “You have to take the good with the bad.” He continued. Rimmer nodded. Lister grinned as he noticed that Rimmer’s eyes were everywhere but on him. “You also gotta loosen up a bit.”

He leaned up, drawing Rimmer into a deep kiss. Rimmer returned it, and reluctantly placing his hands on Lister’s damp skin, rubbing his hips in small, circular motions. Lister straddled him and chuckled against his throat. “C’mere, Arn.” He pushed him back against the grass. How many times had he fantasized about this, he and Rimmer rolling around and fucking in the grass, the heat of the sun beating down on them curbed by a slight cool breeze? He could pretend it was Earth. He could pretend, and be happy. He had Rimmer back, that was the important bit anyway.

Rimmer’s hands were feeling his torso as though it were an alien substance. His fingers trailed over his ribs, down his chest, along the slight curve of his cesarean scar. A small frown of concentration was on the hologram’s lips, as though he was trying to make sense of Lister’s skin. Lister let him continue, kissing the mussed curls of his hair, down his shoulder, and up again, until Rimmer seemed to be paying more attention to the fact that he was there, and not only his body. Rimmer blushed with embarrassment when Lister caught his eyes with a knowing look, and, quite to Lister’s surprise, broke the awkward atmosphere by gripping Lister’s shaft firmly, pulling at him with a surprisingly skilled hand.

Lister yelped, but recovered his composure quickly, arching into Rimmer’s hand. He clawed desperately at the shimmering blue uniform. It didn’t behave like normal fabric ought to, and he was too impatient to figure it out. “Get it off.” He hissed. Rimmer complied, the body beneath him shimmering with a slight vibration, and leaving him with a large expanse of hard light skin before him.

Once his skin was bare, he sucked any of it within reach into his mouth, half kissing and half biting in a frenzy, licking indentations of flesh. He closed his own handover Rimmer’s shaft, and pumped it in time with Rimmer’s own motion. He could feel Rimmer’s legs grappling him, could feel the sharpness of a protruding rock against his thigh, but such awkward things were trivial when you had your lover in your grasp and the scent of tender green grass in your nostrils, leading up to a blissful orgasm.

Lister couldn’t say how long it lasted, but he’d ceased to care about such things. He held his lover close, listening to the water flow downstream and the occasional rustle of a rabbit in the undergrowth hedging the water. He closed his eyes, and pretended that they were home.


End file.
